While You Were Dying
by Rydd Rider
Summary: Two years after the Demon Revolt, Bartimaeus and Kitty have a pretty good life going for them. That all changes when they catch wind of a magician conspiracy to overthrow the new government with a summoned army of... dead people? FULL SUMMARY INSIDE!
1. Home And Back Again

**Full summary: Two years after the Demon Revolt, Bartimaeus and Kitty have a pretty good life going for them. That all changes when they catch wind of a magician conspiracy to overthrow the new government with a summoned army of... dead people? With Bartimaeus put out of action and unable to communicate with her new ally, Kitty must find a way to stop the magicians from learning how to complete their army. Which is tricky enough without the new troubles of a disturbingly relevant past...**

**Ah, my first chapter in the Bartimaeus fandom! ^_^ I've got a couple things to say: 1) I am a die-hard Bartimaeus/Kitty shipper. Naturally, that's the pairing in this story. Don't like, don't read, that's all I have to say about that. 2) This story is rated for some torture disguised as punishments from master to slave. I'll be the first to admit that it may be a little dark, but I try not to make it too bad. 3) I'm sorry if I get any facts wrong, I'm by no means an expert, and also, I'm not British, so I might get some terminology or the geography of London wrong. Sorry, I can't help it. I very much would appreciate some constructive criticism, but don't be TOO much of a jerk, please.**

**Disclaimer: The series is Stroud's, not mine. I only own this plot.**

People laughed, all of them in a tight circle of tight friends who hadn't been able to stand each other in their past existence. Their faces shone as they spoke and nothing could upset a soul. All so kind, so fun, so nice. Everything was calm, happy, peaceful forever.

Quite suddenly, he threw up.

He hadn't eaten anything bad, of course. In fact, he hadn't eaten anything at all since the past existence. People in the circle stared, wide-eyed, as he writhed and thrashed. Fishhooks seemed to enter his stomach through his spine and pull hard. Suddenly, he understood what was happening and choked out a promise that he'd be back, and they'd be safe. He'd make sure of it.

They wanted to know what was going on. But he was already gone, back to the last existence, by a power that only he truly understood. That's why he of all of them was drawn forth, after all.

He understood. And so, maybe, he could win.

* * *

If it always had hurt this bad, he had some serious repenting to do, he figured. He landed hard on his feet and immediately collapsed to his knees, stomach heaving, limbs shaking. His head hung low, staring at the ground as he struggled to recall how to stand in this world.

Right. Legs. So that's what those silly appendages were used for.

He began climbing slowly to his feet when he was hit by a force he could hardly comprehend. A voice shouted an order he couldn't understand. But he didn't care about the voice anywhere near as much as he cared about the pain coursing through his own body. _Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. _He collapsed again, this time fully the floor, where he writhed and screamed. His hand hit something—an invisible wall of sorts—and seemed suddenly to be aflame with an entirely new kind of pain. He curled up, bit his lip, and refused to move until the pain ebbed.

Finally, it did. Again he slowly stood and faced the man in the other pentacle.

It was almost an embarrassing sight. The man was dressed in ridiculous clothes, drainpipe trousers, a suit that was practically painted on that glaringly emphasized the man's paunch, and a flauntingly flaring black cloak behind him. His hair was cropped short in a military style, his beard an oddly shaped triangle, his eyebrows bushy enough to grow berries.

He didn't understand what in the world all that excess clothing was for, only wearing a loincloth himself, and thought the style quite ludicrous anyhow. He couldn't help at the very least raising an eyebrow.

The eyebrow was met with another force of pain. It was the other man, he realized, and the man made five points of energy from the pentacle that met up right at him—the Stimulating Compass. Quite painful.

Again, he writhed and screamed. Again he got to his feet and looked to the man, carefully expressionless.

The man spoke, but in a gibberish language that he couldn't understand, that hadn't been in any learning he'd heard of. Confusion graced his face, and the man saw it. The man's face twisted in a frustrated way as he repeated whatever he'd said, but slower.

It didn't help him. He simply didn't understand the language.

"What language are you speaking? Do you understand Greek?" he asked politely in his native language.

The man seemed to understand. "So you're a Greek brat, eh?" he replied in the same language of the boy, with a rather rough accent, the boy thought.

"Yes. More of a scholar than a brat, however," he responded.

The man grunted. "I say you're a brat, therefore you're a brat. I'm your master now, boy, don't you understand what these pentacles mean?"

"They mean that you can enslave a free being to your will. They mean you can inflict any punishment on them that you will. They mean that you are cruel. They mean nothing but imprisonment and torture for me," the boy answered.

The man swore, in Greek, for the benefit of his one-boy audience. Then he muttered a spell for the Stimulating Compass again, sending the boy again to the ground inside his pentacle and a screaming fit of pain. But he'd already learned much, which he used to distract him from the haze of pain.

He'd been summoned. Not good. And if the walls and floor made of a strange gray substance and the view out the window was anything to judge by, the world had changed much since he'd last been here. But the magician who'd summoned him was like any other, worse than he'd wanted to believe.

He was beginning to realize how the spirits just might feel. Had he been wrong before?

**By the way, I'm not answering any questions you may have about this story yet. I'd prefer to have the story itself reveal all. Feel free to ask, just expect disappointment if you do. ^_^ Review, please!**

**-Rydd Rider**


	2. Lost And Found

**Thank you nari nick for reviewing, the only one who did. Either this is a smaller fandom than I thought, or people just don't like reviewing. But thanks for reading anyway. Onward!**

**Disclaimer: Having said it in the first chapter already, you know I don't own it. This is the last time I'm saying it in this story.**

"Kitty, are we actually doing anything, or are we just wandering around?" the djinni beside her complained.

Kitty sighed in a way that didn't usually suit her; it was too sad and thoughtful. The Egyptian boy perked up. "What is it?"

"Well, this is the two years anniversary of, well, you know…" He'd better—the Demon Revolt, it was being called, but they knew it better as the day Nathaniel died. "I thought we could go visit the monument they set up a couple weeks ago. You know, for him."

Bartimaeus looked at her with a tenderness that rarely graced his features as she concluded awkwardly and looked away. He brushed her arm gently, and when she looked over, he rolled his eyes jokingly. Being gentle was not usually something the djinni would do for anyone else, of course, but over the last two years, girl and djinni had fallen in love. When Bartimaeus had gone as far to call it a real-life remake of _Swans of Araby_, she'd fed him a knuckle sandwich. He hadn't said anything _that_ tactless since.

"Fine. Let's go to Natty-boy's monument." He sounded exasperated, but she knew better. Anything they did together was okay by both of them.

But the monument, which they hadn't taken time to see before then, frankly wasn't all it cracked up to be.

"This is terrible," Kitty whispered. "Who made this thing?"

The monument was a statue of John Mandrake. That was the first problem. The image set in stone held no resemblance to the boy Nathaniel she'd come to know in those last hours—it was John Mandrake one hundred per cent: the same hideous suit design, the same military haircut, the same ambition and arrogance and snobbishness all rolled into one plastered on his face, complete with a smirk and Gladstone's staff. A plaque at the bottom of the statue read, _John Mandrake: Savior of London._ Kitty could have taken a chisel to it. John Mandrake wasn't the "Savior of London", Nathaniel was.

"Nathaniel would have hated this statue," Kitty whispered.

"And yet it would have made John Mandrake strut around like a turkey the day before Thanksgiving," the djinni pointed out. He gave the statue an irritated glare. "Plus, we're not even here."

"But he wasn't always John Mandrake," she said sadly, "and we stayed out of the official story on purpose, remember?" She gazed at the statue with something nearing nostalgia.

The wistfulness in her expression made Bartimaeus a tad uncomfortable. "Well," he said, "Natty-boy isn't gonna care too much about that statue anyway, seeing as he's gone, and you have me, don't you?"

Kitty smiled at the thinly veiled cry for attention. She gave the Egyptian boy at her side a sly look out of the corner of her eyes. He was in Ptolemy's form, as usual, but for her convenience he added several inches to his form's height. It made it a good deal less awkward to seem a couple in public.

She gave his cheek a peck. "Yes, I do have you. Do you want to go to a restaurant and put mean ol' attention-stealing Nathaniel out of your head?"

Bartimaeus grinned. "As a matter of fact, I do."

She rolled her eyes, but a smile lurked at the corner of her mouth.

* * *

"Do you mind when we go to restaurants, since you can't eat human food and all?" Kitty asked with her mouth full. She wasn't one much for manners.

The djinni lounged back in his booth seat across from her and seemed to think. "Well, no. You eat whatever I order anyway, so I don't think the restaurant minds either. Plus, it's amusing watching you eat."

Kitty swallowed her food and glared at him. "Amusing? Excuse me?"

"Perhaps I should have said 'refreshing'," he corrected himself. Her glare softened a little. "You get all those magicians who eat too much or too little depending on how they want to look and how they want others to view them, and then you get people like _you,_ who just eat when they're hungry. As I said, refreshing."

"You certainly hold magicians in the highest contempt," she noted.

"Of course. I've only ever trusted two humans ever, and only one of them was a magician. Heck, he didn't even deserve to be called one."

"So if one was a magician, I wonder who the other was," Kitty mused jokingly.

"A certain beautiful commoner," Bartimaeus informed her confidentially, leaning across the table toward her.

Kitty smirked. "Stop flirting and let me eat," she told him, bopping him on the nose with her fork.

He screwed his eyes shut and his nose seemed to steam a little. "Silver fork," he said.

"Oops," she responded, unrepentant.

* * *

Just after they left the restaurant, someone tugged at Kitty's shirt.

"Excuse me, Miss."

Kitty turned around. Behind her was a young girl, a child, really. She was blond with big blue eyes that glanced nervously to the Egyptian boy beside Kitty almost constantly.

"Miss, you're a magician, right?" the little girl squeaked.

"What makes you think that?" Kitty asked her kindly.

The girl gulped. "Th-the demon with you, Miss."

Kitty looked over at Bartimaeus, who was standing innocently in Ptolemy's form. There wasn't anything odd about that, so how had the girl been able to tell? Then she realized.

"Can you see demons?" The djinni behind her made an indignant sound at the phrasing, but Kitty ignored him. The blond girl nodded vigorously.

"Yes, Miss. That's why they chose me for this job."

"Job?" Kitty asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"I'm supposed to find magicians and give them a message. They said they'd pay me, and since Daddy died in the Demon Revolt…" The girl gulped. "Mommy can't get enough, so I'm helping."

Kitty could feel her heart go out to the little girl. She glanced at Bartimaeus to gauge his reaction to her. He seemed largely unaffected, so she figured the little girl was genuine, not some spirit or other.

"Here," she said, pulling some coins from her pocket and handing them to the little girl. "You need these more than I do."

The girl's eyes widened at the sight. A bright smile lit up her face and her head bobbed up and down several times.

"Thank you, Miss, very much! But now I need to give you the message."

Kitty almost told her that she wasn't a magician, but she saw the glance Bartimaeus gave her and realized that this was a good chance to find out if the magicians were planning something. She nodded for the little girl to go ahead with her message and leaned down as the little girl motioned so she could whisper it in her ear.

"The Demon's Tankard, seven o'clock tonight. This is the last day. Don't bring any of your demons past Sailor's Way—we'll have watchers. A new dominance will be shown. Come for revenge."

The little girl backed away. "Did you get all that?"

Kitty nodded slowly. "Yes. I did. Thank you." She smiled at the little girl. "I hope you and your mother make it through."

The little girl gave a grin. "Thank _you,_ Miss. I hope we do too." She walked away, carefree and nearly skipping, unaware of the potential of the content in her message.

"So, what'd she say?" Bartimaeus asked. Kitty told him and he raised an eyebrow. "Demon's Tankard, eh? Pretty shady place. Are you planning on going for this so-called revenge?"

She shook her head. "Not for the revenge. I'm going to go to see what those magicians are up to. Will you come, at least until Sailor's Way?"

"Sure thing. I'd never let you go alone."

"Alright. Be aware that we might need to leave a little early."

"You mean a stylishly desperate escape?" the djinni grinned, and she saw that he'd sharpened Ptolemy's teeth for effect. "Sounds like my kind of thing."

"Good. We have a magician's party to crash tonight."

* * *

Kitty looked at her watch and let out a curse. It was already seven fifteen. "We're late."

"I told you we should have flown, but no, we take the bus that goes about three inches an hour," the fly buzzed in her ear.

"I've had enough of your flying for a lifetime," Kitty quipped, referring to when Bartimaeus had kidnapped her on Nathaniel's orders.

"You could've given it another shot, Kitty, I've lived with it for five thousand years."

"And I don't know how you managed that," she muttered to the fly.

"Skill," he explained cockily.

"Luck," she countered.

"Sailor's Way bus stop!" called the driver.

"That's me." Kitty stood up and got off the bus. The fly buzzed out just as the doors closed again.

"Are the other spirits here?" Kitty asked the Egyptian boy suddenly walking next to her.

"Yup, about half a block ahead. You go on to The Demon's Tankard. Ironic name, wouldn't you say? Since they're not letting the demons themselves in?"

She ignored his rambling. "Bartimaeus, stay here and try not to get yourself in trouble. I might need you."

"Might? I'd say it's a definitely," he corrected.

Kitty ignored him again and continued walking.

* * *

As she approached the derelict tavern that was The Demon's Tankard, she saw the same little blond girl who'd given her the message.

"They're asking everyone to go around back, Miss."

Kitty nodded to her and walked around to the back door of the tavern. The moment she opened it, she realized that this shambling old place was not exactly what it seemed. Yes, the insides were dark and dusky. Yes, there were servers giving out drinks. But there most similarities to a tavern ended. There were small, round tables throughout the room with neat white tablecloths. There were chairs around, but there were so many magicians—Kitty hadn't even known there were this many left alive, but somehow she suspected that this wasn't all of them—that most had to stand crammed together like sardines in a can. There was a short stage at the front of the room and on it stood a magician in a pentacle. He was speaking, something about demons and summonings and—dead people? But Kitty wasn't really listening. She was staring at the creature in the other pentacle.

It was a boy—well, a spirit in disguise as a boy, wearing a simple loincloth. He was several years younger than herself, dark-skinned, and looked about as frightened as a rabbit. His body was discolored by the purple of new bruises and the yellow of fading ones and his body was beat up enough to have been run over by a steam roller. He had a black eye and a split lip, and his dark, longish hair dangled limply. She wondered why the spirit didn't change its appearance to something else, something a little less beat up.

The magician barked an order to the boy in a different language. Kitty watched as, with fear in his eyes, the boy edged away from the magician and closer to the crowd.

"He is real! Touch him! Make him bleed! I do not lie to you!" the magician crowed.

The boy had reached the fringes of the crowd; they grabbed him and pulled him in like a wild animal, and Kitty lost sight of him.

For several minutes, the magician ranted about "bringing back the age of a magician dominance of London" with their "improved army" while a majority of the magicians there couldn't even hear him. They were shouting in excitement and triumph, and as Kitty stood by the door, she wondered what it was about.

Then she saw the boy again. He was near her in the crowd, the magicians shoving him this way and that, all wanting to touch him to see if he was really there. Suddenly, one of the magicians struck him hard in the face with a fist, and those around gasped as they saw the boy's face bloodied. He swayed, as if the force of the blow was going to knock him out.

"He _does_ bleed! How!" one cried.

Kitty felt distinctly sick at the display of cruelty and morbid curiosity. The boy was shoved directly to her and at the close up look at his face, she realized that the fear she saw was nothing short of terror.

Suddenly, Kitty realized she didn't care if she found out anymore about this magician rebellion, so long as she could save the boy—even if he was a spirit. Her hand shot out almost of its own violation and latched onto his wrist. For the first time, he cried out and tried to pull away, but she jerked him forward with her as she sprinted out of the tavern in a blur, dragging the boy behind her.

It was several moments before the magicians seemed to notice, piling out the back door after her, drunk on the ideas that the magician on the stage had apparently been feeding them and determined to get the girl that had taken their focus point.

The boy kept stumbling, almost making them both fall over. He seemed on the very brink of unconsciousness. Kitty ran towards Sailor's Way, hoping that they'd be able to make it to where Bartimaeus would be waiting…

Something swooped down and grabbed them from behind. Kitty screamed as she and the boy were suddenly lifted into the air until she heard the voice above her:

"Kitty, you scream like a girl. Oh wait, you are one, aren't you?"

"You are _so_ lucky I can't get at your face right now, buster," she snarled at Bartimaeus. She glanced over at the boy, who hadn't bothered even struggling as they'd been picked up. Then she realized he was unconscious. Poor thing.

"Bartimaeus, land us at my apartment. Maybe we can clean the kid up and figure out what this is all about."

Bartimaeus ducked his head to look at the boy and whistled. "The kid's so beat up his own mother wouldn't recognize him! What's he been up to, anyway?"

The sick feeling settled back in Kitty's stomach. "I don't think you want—" She cut off in a scream as, after a quick, sickly slicing sound, Bartimaeus began plummeting to the ground.

The djinni cushioned their landing with his body, his wing limp to the side. He moaned. "Silver. They got my wing with silver… I think it was an foliot with a spear. Embarrassing."

"Let me see the wing," Kitty demanded. He obediently flopped the injured wing into her lap. The feathers were askew and there was a neat, 3-inch-wide hole from which a clear substance leaked—essence. "Ouch," she murmured.

"Not too bad, actually. Give me a few minutes and I'll get us—"

Kitty's world was a blur of feathers for a moment as he cut off and shoved her to the side. She heard him cry out and saw the silver hilt imbedded in his stomach. He moved his beak to pull it out, but stopped, unable to bring himself to willingly touch the harmful silver aura. He leaned his head away from it. "Ow, ow, ow…"

Kitty yanked it out for him and he slumped in relief. "That was a pretty direct hit," he commented almost conversationally. "Might be more than a few minutes."

She made a split-second decision. "I'm sending you back."

Bartimaeus stared at her, tearing his attention away from his essence-leaking belly. "Come again?"

"I'm dismissing you. You need to heal. I'll summon you in three days."

"Kitty—"

She didn't listen to him. She stammered out the words of dismissal while picking up the dark-skinned boy, and by the time she'd hidden in a warehouse less than a block away, despite his protests, the djinni was long gone.

**And so you there you have it, the source of the title, While You Were Dying. A lot can happen in three days, after all. There's also another hidden meaning, but I can't explain that one just yet.**

**Thanks for reading, it makes my day when I get reviews! No, really, it makes me glow! ^_^**

**-Rydd Rider**


	3. Healing Slowly

**And so comes the third chapter. Read, enjoy, and review.**

Kitty fished for the key in her pocket, trying to hold the boy up at the same time, her arm trembling. He was skinny and surprisingly light, but he was still deadweight and she'd been carrying him for a while now.

She brought the key out of her pocket and shoved it into the lock. Turning it, she opened the back door to her small house into her kitchen. Bartimaeus had asked her if he could put up a protective nexus around the house, but then he'd need to be there for her to get in; Kitty had argued that there would be times she'd need to go home without him hovering over her. He'd relented, and now she was grateful for the fact—he wasn't here now, no matter how much she might wish he was.

After dragging the boy in, she leaned against the door as it closed and let the boy slide to the floor. Why was her heart racing the way it was? She'd evaded magicians before. She wasn't in danger for the moment—they were looking for another magician, not a commoner. The boy was safe. Why couldn't she calm down?

Kitty answered her own question: Bartimaeus had been injured. She shivered again at the mere thought of the silver knife sticking out of his stomach. Him being hut while protecting her was one of the things she couldn't really forgive him for—or herself, for that matter. But he was safe now, back in the Other Place, where he could heal. Safe.

Kitty's heart rate finally slowed. As long as Bartimaeus was okay, she could deal with anything else that was thrown at her. She loved him, after all.

The boy groaned and shifted. Kitty leaned over him as his dark eyes licked open, the eyelid of the bruised eye only lifting part way. He saw her face above him and let out a cry, reacting faster than she would have thought possible as he seemed to fly across the floor until he reached the corner of her kitchen. He hit the wall so hard it had to have hurt, but he paid the pain no heed as he stared at her in fear, his hands raised in front of his body in a weak attempt to shield himself.

Kitty approached him slowly, her hands out in front of her in a peace-making gesture. "It's okay," she said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you like those magicians did. It's okay. You're safe." But he didn't seem to understand a word she said.

Even as he trembled, Kitty kneeled in front of him and gently touched his wrist. He made a muted yelp and pulled his hands to his chest, recoiling from her touch.

"Shh," she murmured comfortingly, "it's okay." She placed a hand on his dark hair gently. He whimpered, but backed into a corner as he was, he couldn't move away. Softly, she stroked his hair, saying comforting words in a soft tone, and even if he didn't seem to understand exactly what she was saying, the lull in her voice calmed him.

The two stayed in that position for several minutes. He was looking at the floor and Kitty couldn't see his face, but she could see several cuts on his arms that needed tending to. What she could see of his chest was a mass of bruises, but there wasn't much she could do about that. She stood to get a first-aid kit, but when she moved, the boy tensed again.

"Shh," she whispered. "Stay here."

She left the kitchen to get the first-aid kit from her bedroom and didn't see him look up at her almost shyly as she went.

* * *

He shivered where he sat on the hard floor. It seemed to be made out of some kind of marble, maybe, but that was the only familiar substance anywhere except for wood. The walls were white and almost chalky, but hard, as his thump into the corner had proved. There were tables around, with cupboards below and above them, with too many strange-looking contraptions he didn't recognize. He'd considered getting up, but maybe it was better to just sit where he was until that girl came back.

That girl… There were several things he didn't understand about her. First and foremost, she spoke some strange language that he didn't understand. He hadn't tried Greek with her yet—or Latin, or Egyptian—and he figured he should soon. She might understand one of them, since those three had been the traditional languages of a magician when he'd been alive.

That was another thing—'when he was alive'. Was he alive again, or had his spirit simply been summoned? He checked his own pulse. Steady. Strange. He wondered if the magician—his _master_; suddenly he saw why spirits hated that word so—had any idea what he'd done, what he was doing. Somehow he thought not. He was the first. Well, that had happened last time too, so that was okay.

Again, that girl. Did she want to hurt him or not? He'd been more terrified of her than all the other magicians combined simply because of the aura that radiated off of her, and when she'd grabbed his wrist, he'd been frightened out of his pain-hazed mind. Then he'd slid into blissful unconsciousness, only to wake up with her standing over him. Just them two alone. Again he'd been frightened, after the events of the past week he'd been here in this world as a slave, but though he'd been unable to think rationally enough to escape, she hadn't hurt him. She'd even seemed to be comforting him in her strange language, and she'd stroked his hair, apparently trying to soothe him.

He knew that not everyone was like his master. Was he lucky enough to have been kidnapped by someone who would help him?

The girl walked back into the room, leaving the door open. The door—it was one of the few familiar objects he could see, and its presence made him feel not _quite _as lost. She was carrying a small white box with red, foreign writing on it. She saw him and smiled kindly, apparently glad he was still there. Only then did it occur to him that he could have run while she was gone. Oh well, too late now.

She knelt in front him again and opened the box. He saw an assortment of strange tools inside that he didn't understand. She took one of them out, some kind of tube, and twisted part of it off. She held her hand out, as if expecting him to do something.

He just cocked his head in confusion. She gave him a little smile and reached out, grabbing his hand. He started a little, but she started talking again in that calming way of hers. She slowly drew his arm out and fingered one of his cuts gently. He winced a little but didn't pull away. She took the tube-shaped thing she was holding, put the tip of it to his cut, and squeezed gently. A clear liquid trickled out, and he gave a yelp as it stung. He snatched his arm away and put his other hand on his stinging cut, looking at her accusingly. What had she done?

She reached out, speaking comfortingly again, but he drew away as far as he could against the wall. She sighed and studied him for a moment, then looked around, as if searching for something. She finally brushed some dirt from under one of the cupboards. She put it into a little pile and looked at him to check if he was watching, which he was, curious. She pointed to the dirt, then to her skin. She pointed to the tube, then brushed the dirt away.

He thought he knew what she meant—the stinging liquid cleaned his wounds. That was important, he knew, to make sure they didn't get infected. Reluctantly, he held out his arm again. She smiled at him, a little sympathy and maybe pity evident in her eyes.

He didn't want pity. He wanted a lot of things, but not pity. But he couldn't tell her—could he?

"I don't want your pity," he said softly in Greek.

She looked at him, surprised, and for a moment he thought she understood him. But she only said something in her language, looking confused. He tried in Latin and again in Egyptian, but she obviously didn't know either. She said something again, but he just shook his head. They couldn't communicate with words; that much was clear, which made actions all the more important.

The girl just stared at him for a moment until he glanced pointedly at his still stretched out arm. She took the hint and sighed in relief as she went to work with her cleaning fluid. It stung, but after that feeling faded they did feel better.

Maybe he could trust her. So long as she didn't turn out to be some kind of deceitful magician.

* * *

Kitty sighed in relief when the boy let her use the antiseptic. She wondered if he really was a demon—spirit, she meant, obviously; that's what she always called them, but everyone slips up, don't they?—but she couldn't really tell. He treated her very normal kitchen wary glances as though it was a very alien environment. If he was indeed a spirit, she wondered when his last service had been.

She figured it must have been a while ago. He didn't even speak English, apparently, but that could be simply because he'd never had to learn the language before. Or did spirits instinctively know every language? These were the simple questions that had never occurred to her to ask Bartimaeus until now, when she wouldn't be able to for three days. It seemed like such a long time when he was a world away.

A whole new problem presented itself with the Band-Aids. Kitty picked one out from her first-aid kit and he leaned in for a closer look. She held her hand out again, and this time he knew what she wanted; he stretched out his arm once more. She peeled off the two protective strips and carefully placed the Band-Aid over his cut. He snatched his arm away and stared in wonder at the small contraption. He poked it, prodded it, and almost started to peel it off, but stopped and winced as it pulled at the hair on his arm. She could see the moment of recognition when he finally realized it was a bandage. He seemed to be fairly bright—Kitty wasn't sure she'd be able to tell a Band-Aid was a bandage if she'd never seen one before, and he'd picked up on her antiseptic pantomime pretty fast. She put more Band-Aids on his arms, to cover all but the smallest cuts, then gave his face a look.

She gently lifted his chin with her hand. He pulled away, not as violently as he would have before, but simply in an instinctive move. She briefly departed to get a wet rag, came back, grabbed his chin gently again, and began to carefully clean his face of the dried blood. There was an awful lot of it, and her cloth was a disgusting rusty red by the time she could see any of the natural skin of his face, and even then, his face was probably still past recognition—not that she could tell, never having seen him before. His black eye was almost fully swollen shut, and she decided that she'd need to get some ice for him soon, after a few more checks.

His legs were largely uninjured, with only a few bruises. Not being able to help with that, Kitty bypassed his legs and looked at his chest. It was nearly covered with bruises of varying size and color, but she didn't see any blood anywhere. She felt his ribs, saying soothing words as he winced when she pressed his bruises, to make sure they weren't broken. She was about to stand up, figuring her work was done, when she realized two things: One, the sleeves of her coat, which she'd rolled up, had blood on them. Two, the white wall behind the boy also was red with blood.

Kitty gasped and grabbed his shoulder, spinning him around in a sudden gesture that frightened the boy again. He jerked in her grip, and she let go as she stared in horror at the mangled bloody mess that was his back.

* * *

His heart pounded. Was she angry? Was she going to hurt him? His back already ached and was probably bleeding something awful from the harsh, completely unnecessary whipping his master had given him. He squirmed in her grip, and she let go instantly. He turned around to face her and saw the look of utter horror in her expression.

"I'll guess you can hardly believe your own kind would do this?" he said softly. She didn't seem to hear him, and he knew that even if she had, she wouldn't have understood. His mouth twisted into a sardonic smirk, something that had never before graced his face.

"I never did either, but that's where I'm wrong, isn't it?" he whispered. "Even I, a scholar of the Library of Alexandria, am sometimes wrong," Ptolemy breathed, anger and betrayal in his eyes where there never had been before.

**^_^ Reviews appreciated. Oh, and by the way, I'm a huge Ptolemy fan, which is why I HAD to bring him into the story... even if I'm just going to beat him up. So yeah, just a little explanation.**

**-Rydd Rider**


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